Rupert Murdoch launched an ‘over-crude’ and ‘not very clever’ attempt to rush
Tony Blair into backing the war on Iraq just days before a crucial Commons’
vote, it was claimed last night.

The media baron phoned the then prime minister in March 2003, warning him of
the dangers of a delay in invading Iraq, according to the final volumes of
Alastair Campbell’s diaries, the Burden of Power, Countdown to Iraq.

Claims by the former spin-doctor that Mr Murdoch was lobbying on behalf of
George Bush’s Republicans will raise questions about Mr Murdoch’s evidence to
the Leveson Inquiry.

Mr Murdoch had insisted he never tried to influence any prime minister.

He had told the Leveson Inquiry that there was no secret that News
International supported the Iraq War and that his views were known long before
the conflict began.

The billionaire also told the judge-led panel in April: ‘I’ve never asked a
prime minister for anything.’

John Major cast doubts on Mr Murdoch’s claims, however, telling the inquiry
he had been told to change his policies on Europe or face a withdrawal of
support from News International before the 1997 election.

Mr Campbell wrote in his diaries, to be serialised in the Guardian, that on
March 11, 2003, Mr Murdoch tried to persuade Mr Blair to hurry and back the
invasion of Iraq.

He said Mr Blair ‘took a call from Murdoch who was pressing on timings,
saying how News International would support us etc.

‘Both TB and I felt it was prompted by Washington and another example of
their over-crude diplomacy. Murdoch was pushing all the Republican buttons, how
the longer we waited the harder it got.

Alastair Campbell makes the claim in the final volumes of his
controversial Diaries

Mr Campbell added the following day that: ‘TB felt the Murdoch call was odd,
not very clever.’ The diaries also said that Gordon Brown was plotting so
aggressively against Mr Blair that Downing Street concluded in 2002 that he was
‘hell-bent on TB’s destruction’.

Mr Blair had considered sacking his Chancellor but did not do it because
‘when it comes to ability, he and I are head and shoulders above the rest’.

Mr Campbell disclosed that the PM had been told by his Health Secretary, Alan
Milburn, that Mr Brown and his aide, Ed Balls, had been urging Labour MPs to
vote down foundation hospitals.

The claim will raise questions about Mr Brown’s insistence before the Leveson
Inquiry that neither he nor his allies had briefed against Mr Blair.

Mr Blair also believed that the Prince Charles had been ‘captured by a few
very Right-wing people’.

His claim came after the Daily Mail published leaked letters from the Prince
about a compensation culture in 2002.

Mr Blair ‘liked, rated and respected’ the Queen but thought Prince Charles
had a ‘dig’ at the Labour government during a speech for her Golden Jubilee in
2002.